Travis Kelce joked that he was telling Andy Reid how much he loved him.
Reid quipped how their blowup on the sideline Sunday during Super Bowl 2024 captured his lack of balance.
But the Chiefs star did drop an f-bomb on his head coach, according to lip reader Jeremy Freeman, who told the New York Post that Kelce’s message to Reid was: “Hey, come on, you f–ker, put me on.”
Another lip reader told the Daily Mail that Kelce screamed, “Keep me in. You f–ker! I’m calm now!”
In the second quarter of the Chiefs’ 25-22 overtime win, Kelce approached Reid on the sideline, yelled and even bumped his head coach.
The Chiefs had just lost possession in the red zone, with running back Isiah Pacheco fumbling the ball away, and Kelce was seemingly frustrated about not being on the field for that snap, according to the CBS broadcast.
While both were scarce with details, NFL Films will have mic’d up coverage coming from the game that will emerge this week and that sideline interaction would be a prime candidate to be highlighted if the league wants.
“You guys saw that?” Kelce said. “I’m going to keep it between us unless my mic’d up tells the world. I was just telling him how much I loved him.”
Kelce and Reid hugged, with The Athletic also reporting that Reid “patted” Kelce on the back, later in the quarter, and Kelce — who had just one catch for 1 yard in the first half — ended up playing a key role in the Chiefs’ second consecutive Super Bowl title and third in the past five years.
He finished with nine catches for 93 yards, with 38 of those coming on Kansas City’s game-tying drive at the end of regulation and game-winning possession in overtime.
“He came out of nowhere,” Reid told NBC Sports after the game about their sideline situation. “But that’s him. He’s wound up so tight. He says, ‘Don’t count me out! I’m good! I can do this!’ I love that intensity. It radiates.”
Kelce’s frustration had emerged at other times throughout a 2023 season where the Chiefs’ offence struggled, including a Christmas Day game against the Raiders when he slammed his helmet on the sideline.
But before the Super Bowl, Andy Reid gave a glowing answer about how Kelce had learned to contain his “temper” since joining the Chiefs in 2013 — the same year Reid was hired as head coach.
“The player’s always been really good,” Reid told CBS in the pregame interview. “Now, he had a temper, so on the field he would go off and do some crazy things. He was a challenge early, but he’s grown up right before our eyes. He’s always had that heart, that soft heart, but he had to just grow out of the other stuff.”
Both Kelce and Reid have said they plan to return in 2024, which will keep the integral parts of their core, for both players and staff, intact as the Chiefs aim for a third consecutive title. This story was published by the New York Post and was reproduced with permission
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